Help Ardalan

More information here. He may well be sent back to Iran where he will probably be hanged and tortured. Of course in a few years it will probably be safe for him to return because the neo-cons will have bombed Iran and it will be a happy country full of cheerful democrats.

Also, of course, if you write to Ms Hillier, nothing about Britain being a Christian country, right? Because we all know that is bigoted and it is more tolerant to send an Asian to be lynched than to suggest that Britain should protect Christians.

A Tale of Two Whingers

Being an annoying busybody is apparently pretty lucrative these days:

'The ruling marked the end of an eight-year battle by a Finnish-born mother, Soile Lautsi. She took her cause to court after failing to get crucifixes removed from the school at which her two children were being taught at a town in north-east Italy...

The court disagreed. "The presence of the crucifix could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign, and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion," it ruled, ordering the Italian state to pay Lautsi €5,000 (£4,476) in damages.'

8 years?! An immigrant spends eight years trying to change the way of life in a country that has been generous enough to let her live there, and instead of telling her to get a life and go away, she is awarded with £4,476

I find this whole thing very bizarre. I am in favour of population movement within Europe, but think that the individual states have a right, if not an obligation, to be bullish about their values. Otherwise they will end up a multicultural mess like the USA, where small pressure groups can tilt the 300,000,000 inhabitants any way they want. Apparently the European Court of Human Rights thinks that Lautsi is more than an excruciating, self-pitying busybody and want to shower her with gold.

As a Brit, I feel pretty uncertain about the EU. I just don't know if our neo-liberal shower will destroy our values and civil liberties faster than Brussels will. The EU is a more optimistic idea than post-imperial Britain, but satan can create optimism as much as God can.





In my previous post I wrote about a busybody- sorry, human rights activist, who was paid handsomely for her 8 year struggle to change the popular laws of the country that was kind enough to give her residence. Johann Hari also seems to have found that modern Europe amply rewards self-serving hysterical secularists. And this article demonstrates just what level of journalism gets awarded in modern Britain.

Firstly, it is a classical example of how farcical the whole 'debate' about Darwinism v Intelligent Design is. Whilst I do not think that 'Intelligent design' is a credible theory, I don't think that many Darwinists actually realise what Darwinian evolution is. This article by militant atheist Hari conveys the impression that Darwinism is atheist Intelligent Design:

'Think about the hunter-gatherer tribes that we lived in a few minutes ago (in evolutionary terms). Those ancestors of ours who identified the most powerful or abundant people in their group, worked their way into their entourage, and imitated their ways were obviously more likely to survive. Seeking out celebs had an evolutionary advantage – so they passed this instinct on to us. The people who thought it was dumb to act this way dropped off the human family tree.'

Really? So there is the inheritance of acquired characteristics after all? Those who beat the drum loudest for Darwin don't seem to really get his ideas.

The article itself is far more interesting as an artefact than as a work. As is often the case, Hari tries using the English language to attack religion. As always, the English language gets the worst abuse:

'Our innate celebrity-instinct used to be directed in really dangerous ways – towards finding revering (?) warriors like Achilles, who killed so many people that Homer ran out of names; or towards fanatics like the Catholic saints who believed God was talking to her.'

'Her' is not a plural pronoun and 'finding revering'? It is sad, in a sense that our papers don't seem to employ writers with much grasp of the English language. Or ideas. Hari's argument is that celeb culture is fine because otherwise people would be totally religious and fanatical and stuff. It doesn't occur to him that the Iliad is a stunning work of poetry, and not a literal guide to what happened in Troy. Furthermore, in an age where one would probably die of tooth-decay or septic cuts, being chopped to pieces by some foreigner would probably be a pretty groovy way to go.

As an article it is painful to read.

Hari wrote previously about celeb culture, criticising people for attacking Jade Goody after she died. I did agree with him on that account, but thought it notable he didn't mention Michael Parkinson's contributions to the criticisms. Whilst I don't think Parky chose the best time to draw attention to Goody's shortcomings, he is himself from a working class background, and is a relic from a vanishing age when Britain's working class children could expect a proper education and become literate and articulate members of the media class. The strange paradox is that whilst there is an appalling dumbed-down celeb culture, due to the education system, working class children probably have less chance of becoming educated figures in the media establishment than they have ever had. Having said that, the British middle classes are as vulgar as anyone else, and as immersed in celeb culture as the people they love to hate.

Still, these two articles sound the death knell of the 'left'. I regard myself as centre left because I dislike neo-liberalism, believe that a society has a moral duty to care for the most vulnerable members and dislike statist right. However, the left is crumbling in standing up to the neo-liberal right (ironically enough, when neo-liberalism is weakest) and has come to support positive discrimination for big mouthed whiners.

So what will replace the left?

Proud Nonos!!!!!

This is me with my Godson Nikolaos. From these pictures, I think I resemble someone in this painting, who is supposed to resemble the father of one of my favourite literary characters. Which I'm sure must mean something.

We're so good at Television!

So I see that the episode of Question Time with Nick Griffin got approximately a gazillion more viewers than average. With the highest viewing figures in its history, I decided with inevitability to watch it on youtube. Yes, that's right. Whenever I've been near a TV, I've always flicked channels to get as far away from Dimbleby's patronising face as possible. Yet I felt that I'd have to look it up.

And what a heap of utter crap it was. I mean really, even my the standards of Question Time it was rubbish. Or maybe it became brilliant after twenty minutes. It seemed that everyone there was trying to clarify that Nick Griffin was a racist. Couldn't they just chain up a bear and say they were sure they saw it making a mess in the woods? It would make for a livelier and more interesting debate. And all that nonsense about Churchill. Why do Brits have this creepy personality cult? Churchill was an idiot who first rose to prominence by messing up the Asia Minor campaign in WWI then by his idiotic diplomacy during WWII, his bombing of German cities and his handing over Central/ Eastern Europe to Stalin.

Don't ask me if his brain or conscience would stop him voting BNP. I haven't the foggiest. But doesn't it say something about intellectual life in Britain that guessing which party a cigar smoking dope who died half a century ago would have voted for? (Sadly I can't find Thomsen's rant in Das Boot on Youtube; not a fan of the Kriegsmarine but it cracks me up compared to how the Brits adore him).

To think I could have spent those twenty minutes watching Are You Being Served on Youtube or something equally valuable (oh, for a time when Britain was British: NOT as in 'ethnically British', but as in 'not an American aircraft carrier' British, And isn't that the weirdest irony about the BNP? They are greatly concerned that only 'indigenous' people should be allowed to watch American TV, wear American clothes, eat American food, listen to American music, speak in American slang and talk about American politics in Britain).

Speaking of which I watched a really disturbing but intelligent British film on youtube called 'Blood on Satan's Claw'. Pretty grim stuff overall, but definitely well made, atmospheric and intelligently written. Given its mystical view of the semi-pagan British countryside, I'd imagine it has a few BNP fans. Though I suspect Linda Hayden gave it a broader appeal than Anglo-Saxon nostalgia could provide.

Watching Me, Watching You

Took these photos. Seems that whenever you turn a corner in Blighty these days there's guaranteed to be a camera and a several technicolour signs. No impact on violent crime/ arrest rates.

In modern Britain, it is regarded as a sign of mental illness to have a hobby, so needless to say, numerous blazer clad types and traffic wardens give funny looks to the nutter who snaps Masonic symbols and CCTV cameras with his own camera. One thing I've discovered is that they loose interest in their self-appointed civic duty to monitor conformity levels if you sing doo wop songs. Just murmur 'white port'n' lemon juice, whoo what it do to you' and they quickly start minding their own business.

Whether they've decided I'm harmless or that they risk GBH by monitoring my behaviour, I don't know.

Anyway, in some cases the metaphors are better than I could have imagined. I especially like the one of the gargoyle under the CCTV (never noticed the gargoyle before; I suppose as a horrific protrusion it can't compete with the concrete and polymer 'makeover' the highstreet had)). I liked the one as well of the camera and the model, symbolising how our society is so narcissistic and obsessed with beauty that we are oblivious to the harsh reality. There is something tragicomic about the boarded up little shack with the CCTV sign outside it. It seems a perfect symbol of Britain: the tinpot spirit on a dilapidated shack.

The Horror, The Horror

If one thing really sickens me about modern Brit politics it’s the ongoing farrago about whether flabby, oily creep Nick Griffin should appear on Question Time.

For those who don’t know, Question Time is a mindnumbing show the purpose of which seems to be to discourage anyone from being vaguely interested in politics. It consists of numerous egocentric middle Englander bigmouths who generally agree on most things (‘humanitarian’ intervention, utilitarian justification for surveillance state, the inherent efficiency of privatisation, embarrassed dislike of poor people, US hegemony, 'right to choose', secularism) who squabble over lexical quibbles, lack of disclaimers, deliberate misinterpretation, lack of praise for their personality cult leader and other idiotic non-arguments Eg ‘Vladimir Putin and George Bush are both monsters’ ‘I strongly disapprove of your implying moral equivalence between Putin and Bush’ (Boris Johnson’s words of wisdom).

It is awful, awful, awful television. The highlight will be Boris Johnson saying ‘cripes’ or Christopher Hitchens’ purple head getting engorged as he yells at an elderly lady for not providing enough disclaimers about opposing fatwas.

If you assembled the most charmless, arrogant, opinionated, oily, patronising, self-righteous, over-praised, under-achieving pillocks you’ve ever met and got them to have a debate, then it would probably provide a sunny picture of humanity compared to Question Time.

Which leads us to Mr Griffin. Now, maybe Peter Hain is justified to think that Nick Griffin will look good on Question Time. That is not a compliment. It’s like saying that being hanged with chicken wire looks pretty good compared to being scraped to death by oyster shells. Yes, that is Nick at the top of the page: he looks like one of Dr Moreau's worst attempts and is incredibly sleazy to boot.

But there is a chance that oily gimp Griffin will not come across as quite so hysterically self-righteous as his co-panelists. Especially as I can pretty much guarantee that a Tory will appear to call him ‘left wing’ for supporting renationalisation of the Railways. Given that John Major’s privatisation led to rail companies receiving four times as much in annual subsidies as was spent running British Rail (whilst the ticket prices are through the roof) it is sad that only a nutter like Griffin supports renationalisation, whilst the hysterical narcissists who pass for ‘left wing’ these days are entirely in favour of the privatisation process. So maybe by appearing on Any Questions, Nick might find a few more saddos to support him purely because of how appalling his fellow panelists will be. If nothing else he seems to be the great white hope, as it were, for public transport.

However, I think in a sense, hyping up the BNP ‘threat’ is even darker. Griffin’s clowns are utterly unlikely to become a significant electoral force. Yet the idea that they will get tens of millions of votes overnight is more a sign of how the establishment suspects that the British working classes are seething racists who would support Nazis if they only knew that they existed. Poor people in Britain are thoroughly dehumanised as income inequality grows. Implying that they are far-right extremists who are too thick to know it yet is more a way of easing the upper middle-class conscience than based on any empirical research.

Needless to say, Peter Hain’s squawking is creepy in its own right. He belongs to a party that has launched preemptive war on three countries, which has supported the ecocide in Serbia, the endless bombing in Afghanistan and has not questioned the use of torture and white phosphorus in Iraq.

Yet he will not hesitate to leap onto his high horse whenever he decides that a ‘bad party’ is out there. And he will make a legal case against it.

PS: Saw this disturbing article which also speaks volumes about freedom of speech in modern Britain.

Yes, Jan Moir's article was disgusting and stupid. Yet do we really need the rozzers to tell Daily Mail writers what is acceptable or not? Seems like the best way to create a society where Daily Mail journalists tell the rozzers what's acceptable or not.

What about those people who praise the 'humanitarian intervention' in Serbia whilst ignoring the vast numbers of rapes, murders and lootings inflicted upon the Serbs by the KLA goons?

Update: Nick Cohen proves my points far better than I could. For those who don't know, Cohen is a snide, astoundingly ugly, oily creep who is wrong about absolutely everything: and needless to say, he is often invited to Question Time.

He thinks that Michael Gove (the snide, astoundingly ugly, emotionally damaged oily creep who thinks that the Fallujah 'shake'n'bake operation against civilians was a moral success) would be ideal to debate an extremist. Jack Straw who helped turn Britain into a police state would also be a valid 'mainstream' opponent. Nick provides the following gem:
'All extremisms, far left, far right and religious fundamentalists, are the same in essence. And today, although the BNP strains at the leash to attack British Muslims, prominent neo-Nazis who grace its rallies will join British Trotskyists in appearing on Press TV, the Iranian propaganda station, and the BNP's foreign affairs spokesman denounces "the warmongers in London and Washington" with all the fervour of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.'

Nick proves he cannot write a coherent sentence or have a coherent thought (which hasn't stopped him being nominated for an Orwell Award) whilst implying that extremists are those who are opposed to preemptive strikes on other countries rather than those who support Britain's role as militant imperialist lapdog. I do not think that the BNP are getting smarter, more ethical or more popular, its just that the mainstream is plunging to meet them.

'Putinite Terror'

Will try to find out more, but this sounds like nonsense.

A historian who was researching Stalinism has been arrested in Russia. Says Luke Harding:

'It comes amid Kremlin attempts to rehabilitate Stalin and to clamp down on independent historical research – with political repression during the Soviet era and victims of the gulag system now taboo topics'

Really? Any facts to back that up? Or is this what you mean? Or this?

He then quotes everyone's favourite Russophobe, Orlando figes:

'Today the historian and writer Orlando Figes described Suprun's arrest as unprecedented, and part of a "Putinite campaign against freedom of historical research and expression".'

So it is unprecedented 'Putinite' strategy to arrest historians during Medvedev's term? How very odd.

Don't get me wrong, whilst I try to defend Russia by highlighting the nonsense printed about it, I would not pretend it is an open society. Yet this really sounds like a load of rubbish to me.